Yes, I think it's the responsibility of people in my sort of job to say "Hold on, this is a really exciting moment and if you're bored then we're all doing something wrong."

Do you get much sleep during the campaign?

Not a lot. You go from 7am in your suit, asking questions in Westminster, through to 10.30pm. It's a long day. My crash point is just after the six o'clock news when the bar of chocolate and the strong coffee comes out.

What kind of chocolate?

It varies. If you want a kind of crunchy experience, it has to be Toffee Crisp. If you need pure chocolate, it's got to be Dairy Milk.

You're even unbiased in terms of your chocolate choice.

Exactly. I'm so programmed by the BBC. At this stage I should be saying, "Well, look, on the one hand there's Rowntree's, on the other there's Nestlé – there's arguments for both."

Do you think that the turnout is going to be affected by the expenses scandal? Are we more apathetic as a result?

On the one hand, the expenses scandal may make us feel "they're all the same, it doesn't make any difference how you vote". But there are two other factors pushing you in the other direction. One is an anger that comes from that, rather than an apathy, which is: "We'll kick those buggers out." But the other big thing that may motivate people to come out is the sheer unpredictability of the result. It's the closest election we've had in years.

Do you vote?

Yes. A lot of colleagues in this business say: "I can't vote." Adam Boulton – who I get on very well with – has a principled position where he doesn't vote because he thinks it would be awkward, given that he has to be neutral. I take the view that I vote because I can't possibly tell other people that this matters and then not participate. But funnily enough I'm not going to tell you how.

What do people say when they recognise you in the street?

One reaction is to start halfway through a conversation as if you know who they are and you know what the conversation is. After the Budget, I was in a bar on Trafalgar Square and a man sat opposite me. He didn't say "Hello" or "You're Nick Robinson, aren't you?" but just: "Do you think the country's run by the civil service or by the politicians?" I found myself beginning to answer this question before thinking, "No, it's 10 to midnight, I've been working for 16 hours, can we have this chat some other time?"

Are your children (aged 14, 13 and nine) interested in politics?

They couldn't help but be interested in the sense that they know it's my job and so they meet people from that world, but I wouldn't describe any of them as political. I mean, the nine-year-old… it would be a bit early, wouldn't it?

Unless you're William Hague.

[Laughs] There are no budding William Hagues in the family.

How important are leaders' wives in influencing how we vote?

I don't think people are daft enough to vote one way or the other based on the profile of leaders' wives but people are always looking to get a sense of what the leaders themselves are like and wives, husbands, partners, can give people a little insight into the type of person who is asking for their vote.

Do you trust politicians on the whole?

I believe in politics and I believe that, for most people who go into politics, at least a significant part of why they go in is to do the right thing by the people they represent. I am paid to treat what politicians say sceptically, to say "Why are they saying this, what aren't they telling me, what could they say that they have chosen not to?" But that doesn't mean I start every interview thinking "that bloke's lying". I absolutely don't and I'm quite uncomfortable with that as an attitude. I mean, Jeremy [Paxman] insists he didn't ever say what he's quoted as saying ["Why is this lying bastard lying to me?"] but I don't approach interviews by taking that kind of line. I do approach interviews thinking: there's probably something they don't want to answer and it's my job to work out what that is and to ask them, which can be a bit uncomfortable.

Has there ever been a moment afterwards where you've really kicked yourself and thought "I should have asked that"?

Usually the time I kick myself is when I haven't boiled an idea down into something that's short and comprehensible. That's when I'm frustrated.

Have you ever considered wearing contact lenses?

Hilariously, when I was first doing this job it turned out there'd been a very high-level discussion at the BBC about whether I should wear contact lenses or glasses. I briefly tried the contacts and the truth is they were like large pieces of grit in my eye and I merely looked surprised. I looked startled and distressed.

George Bush once commented publicly on your baldness at a press conference. Were you hurt by that?

No, I was stunned by it. I mean, you do have to remind yourself, you're at Camp David, it was the first meeting between a new British prime minister and the president of the United States and they're discussing something as important as the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and at the end of this news conference, the leader of the free world points to me and says: "Next time, you should cover your bald head." I'll never quite get over the "Cor blimey, how on earth did that happen?" factor. But no, I wasn't offended. I was amused. The great disappointment of my career was that the then British ambassador sent me a message saying "We're going to get you a baseball cap signed by George Dubya" and it never happened. I'm still waiting.

Is David Cameron's face as smooth in real life as it appears in campaign posters?

Certainly he jokes himself about being quite baby-faced and he is.

You were chairman of the Oxford University Conservative Association, did any of your contemporaries go on to become Tory politicians?

I did know Boris – not well, but you couldn't not know Boris. He debated in the Union. The funny thing is we all thought Boris was a Social Democrat, it was the era of the SDP. We all assumed he was in it. His Tory leanings were not evident.

Were you ever in the Bullingdon Club?

No. I'd be an unlikely member. I'm a chippy north-west boy.

You once wrote on your blog that you were "lying in bed naked" when Charles Clarke resigned. Do you ever wear pyjamas?

No, I'm not a PJs man. But I'm not always naked. That's probably as much information as it's wise to give. Nobody who works for me has ever forgiven me for this horrific image that was conjured up by my blog.